Ye Olde School Café: Captain America: The Blood Stone Hunt pt 1

Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Ye Olde School Café! This week, we’ll be looking at a story involving one of my favorite characters – Captain America! He’s done it all, but in this story, he’ll be facing something he has rarely dealt with in the supernatural. Only his dealing with Baron Blood comes to mind, as far as supernatural or occult stories. This particular story involves another one of my favorites, as well, with the monster hunter, Ulysses Bloodstone! That’s right, Captain America: The Blood Stone Hunt is what we’re going to be checking out, so get ready for some solid Cap action brought to us by Mark Gruenwald, Kieron Dwyer, and Al Milgrom (Captain America #257-262, 1989) (Ulysses Bloodstone created by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman).

As our story begins, we watch three villains as they enter the American Museum of Natural History. Batroc, Machete, and Zaran are seemingly in the employ of Baron Zemo, and he had them steal this unmarked crate for a reason. It’s the skeletal remains of Ulysses Bloodstone, and Zemo plans on using them, along with a psychic detective, to locate the fragments of the famed Bloodstone. The stone is part of a meteorite that has mystical properties that can make the owner immortal. As they are getting aroused about the chance of acquiring these fragments, a prowler is lurking around. It’s Diamondback, and she usually works for the Serpent Society, but also has an on again-off again relationship with Cap. She makes a mistake creeping around the villains’ hideout, though, and they make her pay. Batroc knocks her out, and they contemplate killing her, but instead make a game plan for finding the Bloodstone fragments.

Next we see Cap, as he’s responding to some kind of distress signal that’s emanating from deep below the surface. He evades several booby traps, and then sees a few corpses that resemble the Mole Man’s subterranean creatures. He pushes on, and finds some kind of chamber that has a few more cadavers, including a dolphin…? He makes his way into the next chamber, then discovers that he has to repel down to the next one. He is shocked to see that not only is there a crate that looks new in this cavern, but that Diamondback is there, as well! She tells him what she knows about Zemo, the skeleton, and the plans they currently have, and then they climb out. Cap and Diamondback make their way to Avengers Island, and they check the computer files on Bloodstone. One of Cap’s flunkies then manages to rig the skull of Bloodstone so they can use it like a Geiger counter to find the Bloodstones. They fly over the Amazon River, and have to parachute out because there’s no airfield. They trudge through the jungle, and almost immediately get harassed by the natives. They get taken to a temple where it appears that they’re going to be sacrificed alongside Zemo, Batroc, Zaran, and Machete! As Cap tries to make a move, he gets hit with a blow dart in the back of the neck! He and Diamondback both get hit, and slump to the ground, unconscious.

Well, that’s it for now, but be back next week for part two of this crazy adventure! How will Cap and Diamondback get away from these crazy natives; and also, you know Zemo and his crew will have some wild plan to get loose, try and kill everybody, and then get to their objective, the Bloodstones! See you next week!